State police often don't comply with Public Records Law

The Massachusetts State Police is a habitual offender — verging on a career criminal — when it comes to breaking a state law intended to ensure government is accountable to the people it serves.

The agency often fails to respond to public records requests within 10 days as required by law and sometimes takes months to respond, and then only after repeated prodding by state regulators, according to a Telegram & Gazette review of appeals cases against state police handled by Secretary of State William F. Galvin's office.

The appeals files, which number more than 1,000 pages over the last three years, show an ongoing pattern of Public Records Law violations by state police.

State Supervisor of Records Shawn A. Williams and his predecessor, Alan N. Cote, have officially reprimanded or informally chided the state police for failing to comply with the law dozens of times to little effect.

In some cases, state police lawyers simply blew off inquiries from the supervisor of records just as they had those from the person requesting the records, the files show.

Several people who complained to the supervisor of records about such conduct couldn't help but note the obvious irony.

“Legally, you have ten days to respond, so the largest law enforcement outfit in the state is breaking the law,” wrote Joseph Brennan of Plymouth.

David J. Thompson of Woburn, himself a former state police employee, wrote that he was “disheartened” to see that the chief legal counsel of the state's top law enforcement agency could “disregard statutes with impunity.”

And West Boylston private investigator John M. Lajoie, who recently took the unusual step of filing a misconduct complaint against current state police Chief Legal Counsel Michael B. Halpin over the issue, said in an interview: “What really frosts me the most is when the people who are supposed to enforce the law violate the law.”

The agency's superintendent, Col. Timothy Alben, said in an interview this past week that his legal department simply doesn't have enough staff to keep up with the between 900 and 1,100 public records requests per year, some of which he characterized as “nuisance” requests.

“There are things in this business that, you know, don't always strictly comply with what the law requires, unfortunately,” Col. Alben said, later adding, “Our ability to comply with the law is certainly handcuffed somewhat by the resources that are available to me here.”

With fewer employees and less funding in recent years, the agency has been forced to make tough decisions about its priorities, he said.

“The law is the law,” responded Robert J. Ambrogi, a First Amendment lawyer and executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.

“The law sets time periods and other requirements for a specific reason, and no government official is exempt from that,” Mr. Ambrogi said. “I'm sympathetic to the budget realities a lot of government entities face, but the public's right of access to public information should be pre-eminent. It's a key part of our system of government.”

While that may be so, Mr. Lajoie just wants the police report he paid $100 for last fall, after state police broke the law by taking more than a month to respond to his initial request.

Mr. Lajoie, owner of Lajoie Investigations Inc. in West Boylston, and his staff have tried appealing to the supervisor of records, calling state police lawyers several times even though they don't call back, hand delivering a letter of complaint to Col. Alben and, recently, filing a formal citizen complaint of misconduct against Mr. Halpin, the agency's chief legal counsel.

“It's been six months. Where's our report? Where's our money? I'm sick of this,” said Mr. Lajoie, who originally requested the two-page report in August.

Similarly, the Telegram & Gazette hand-delivered an $850 check to state police headquarters in Framingham on Nov. 28, after the agency failed to reply to the initial request within the period required by law. More than three months later, the newspaper has yet to receive the records it paid for.

“I know a lot of state troopers who are friends of mine,” Mr. Lajoie said. “I have a lot of respect for the job they do. But these people up in legal, it's like a circus up there. It's ridiculous.”

Col. Alben said the citizen complaint filed by Mr. Lajoie was not serious enough to warrant an internal affairs investigation into Mr. Halpin's conduct.

Most of the public records appeals against the state police over the last three years were filed by media companies, defense lawyers, civil rights organizations, people disputing speeding tickets and inmates of state prisons.

State law requires custodians of public records to respond to a written request for documents within 10 days. The response must be either an offer to provide the records with a good-faith estimate of the cost or a denial citing specific statutory exemptions to the law. All state government documents are presumed to be public, although subject to narrow redactions where appropriate, according to the supervisor of records.

That's how it's supposed to work, anyway.

Joseph Brennan of Plymouth appealed to the supervisor of records last summer, claiming state police failed to properly respond to his request for an internal affairs complaint against a trooper. His frustrating experience is typical of the kinds of cases in the appeals files.

“I think there's a reasonable amount of time it could go on past the 10 days that most people wouldn't be that upset, but five months is not reasonable,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview. “The attorneys who work for the state police are not bad people. They're understaffed, but it took me six months to get a price quote that they're supposed to provide in 10 days, and it took the secretary of state's office getting involved to even get it then.”

The supervisor of records can order the release of documents, but the office has no power under the law to enforce its orders. State Attorney General Martha Coakley's office has the authority to enforce the supervisor's orders but rarely does. In the appeals files reviewed by the Telegram & Gazette, the supervisor referred only one case against the state police to the AG's office for enforcement, and the state's top prosecutor declined to take any action.

Mr. Williams, the supervisor of records, did not respond to requests for comment.

Maggie Mulvihill of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University has filed public records appeals against the state police in recent years in her current position and in her previous job as an investigative producer at WBZ-TV, Channel 4, the CBS affiliate in Boston.

Ms. Mulvihill said the lack of enforcement power on behalf of the supervisor of public records, and scant enforcement by the AG's office, have engendered a culture of public records stonewalling and foot-dragging among many state agencies.

“Instead of the law being used to contribute to civic health and openness, it just becomes a game to them, to see if they can run out the clock,” she said. “These are government lawyers who take an oath to uphold the law and then they just play games with the public records law.”

A state police spokesman noted that the kinds of records that law enforcement agencies accumulate often contain information exempt from public disclosure and, thus, take longer for lawyers to review and redact before release.

For his part, Col. Alben said a new lawyer recently started in the legal section and another new hire would be starting work this week, bringing the section's staff of lawyers back up to four after some recent turnover. The legal staff also includes a paralegal and a trooper assigned to the office, he said.

“I think it would make any chief executive of any organization in America uncomfortable if they can't comply with the law,” Col. Alben said. “But, again, there are limited ways we have to prioritize what we do here.”